Eight people were killed, including seven children, when a rocket hit a residential building in the city of Benghazi in eastern Libya on Thursday, medics said, two days after a similar attack claimed by Islamic State militants.

Israeli forces attacked a position in the north of the Gaza Strip, an immediate response to a Palestinian rocket launched at its neighbour's southern front, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday.

Israeli forces attacked a position in the north of the Gaza Strip, an immediate response to a Palestinian rocket launched at its neighbour's southern front, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Friday.

Syrian air force strikes killed at least 70 people in an opposition district outside Damascus following rocket attacks by rebels that had hit the government-controlled centre of the Syrian capital, a monitoring group said on Friday.

Rocket attacks killed five people in Damascus and wounded at least 35 on Thursday, the state news agency SANA said, in what appeared to be the second heavy bombardment by Islam Army insurgents in less than two weeks.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Monday that Israel will hit back hard if Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza resume, speaking just hours before the midnight expiry of a five-day ceasefire.